The 6th International Conference of Quantitative Genetics (ICQG6) will bring together researchers in agriculture, human health, natural species and evolutionary genetics from across the world united in their interest in understanding and translating the contribution of genetic variation of quantitative traits. They will present and discuss state-of-the-art results, theoretical developments and new methodologies with application across a broad range of both species and traits. The rapid technological advances of the last decade have meant that it is now possible to conduct quantitative genetic analyses on an unprecedented scale and to generate data that can address old, but previously unanswerable questions. More today than ever before, quantitative genetics approaches are relevant across species whether in natural populations, model species, crops, livestock or humans. ICQG6 provides an opportunity for cross-fertilisation of ideas in methods across their applications.